Recording tracks with VSL instruments

[tjr]

Hi,

I just got my first VSL instruments over the past week, and surely have much to learn! I am so far very impressed with the sound quality, and have a specific question:

With pretty much every other virtual instrument I've used before, I would record a track by playing the part live, triggered by a MIDI keyboard. This certainly seems possible to do with VSL instruments, but the variety of samples for an instrument is rather huge!

Do folks usually play the parts live off a keyboard? Or do you assemble a track by, e.g., playing all of the legato phrases first, then making another pass for the stacatto phrases, and another for special dynamics, etc.?

[Andreas S.]

 With Vienna Instruments - and any sample library I know - I said farewell to the joy of playing music live, except for e.g. playing the harp.

It's so much work to make a phrase sound real, I more than once was about to quit ...

Sebastian

[andyjh]

 Everyone is going to work differently, but I play the whole part in live with a single articulation, and then select all the articulation switches by entering them in to Cubase afterwards - I use controller lanes to do this,

I have never found playing live and switching articulations at the same time to work right, because at times you need a lot of changes, and when you are concentrating on selecting the right articulations, that usually messes up your timing for the playing, so I always add the articulation switches afterwards. 

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hello tjr and welcome here in VSL-forum!

Of course it's possible to play samples live. But there also situations which you can't switch and play fast enough....

Watch here... http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/vi-tips--tricks-3/index.php

(just Nr 21)

By the way: On the image above the player you see the keyswitches. Such a line isn't easy to play in a live situation, isn't it?

Further: The sound of the demos is the one side - the work behind the other one...

1 Minute of music = 1 day of work - this is a good starting point for the size of chamber ensembles...

Have fun with your new Library

Beat Kaufmann

[el-russo]

You can automate quite a few things for playing VSL live. Which library do you have? Is it standard or extended?

Of course for live playing you'll have to limit yourself to a smaller number of articulations (simply because the sheer number of those offered by VSL is extremely large) but even then your setup will be very, very versatile and diverse.

[bhartmann]

I write the parts in the Staff view of Sonar using a single articulation (like Legato) and then go back and add the key switches and controllers. I generally write the parts by entering notes with a mouse, but sometimes play the part on a keyboard and then go back and clean up the timing and velocity. By the way, this was always my practice: I did this with samples and synths before Vienna. In answer to your question about doing all the legato, then all the staccato, etc., that would make sense to me if an entire section used a single articulation, but most often you need more than one articulation in a section--legato and sustain at a minimum, but usually more if you are doing any kind of sophisticated parts.

[el-russo]

You can automate speed and velocity. For instance:

1. All the perf interval speed matrixes. Assign one keyswitch per matrix,the rest is automatic.

2. sfz-sffz where the cells are chosen by velocity of your playing, so it's one keyswitch for the matrix, the rest is automatic.

3.. dim me and dim str / cre me and cre str of the same length in one  matrix again controlled by velocity. One keyswitch per matrix, the rest is automatic. Or you could program something like this:

dim me 1.5 s - dim str 1.5 s.

dim me 3.s - dim str 3 s

dim me 4 s - dim str 4 s

controlled horizontally by velocity and vertically by ModWheel etc. In this case you'll have one keyswitch per matrix plus ModWheel within the matrix.

But if you really really want it to be easy, get yourself Cubase, set up your vst expression maps and forget about keyswithes and controllers altogether.

 You can also try Reaper. What it does is it allows you to actually write the names of articulations on the keys of the piano roll editor and those keys flash when you hover the mouse on the appropriate notes. So if you have your articulations as separate matrixes controlled by keyswitches, you can then open your MIDI clip in the In-Line editor, open it in the MIDI editor docked underneath, synchronize the cursor in both, mark the piano roll keys accordingly, and you get something similar to Cubase, but lacking more intricate and complex schemes, of course.